This is our 100th issue. So, here’s 51 things you never knew about Motor Finance because…
1. This is Fred Crawley’s 51st issue.
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2. It is Charles Wheeldon’s 28th
3. My 18th…
4. …and Pete Johnstone‘s sixth.
5. Fred most commonly mis-spells the word ‘finance’ as ‘fiancée’.
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By GlobalData6. Between our associated asset finance and accountancy titles, Grant Collinson, assistant editor of Leasing Life has made tea more often than any other team member.
7. The term "ultra high net-worth individual" amuses the team to the point of being an informal insult among us.
8. Fred and I literally fought, with sleeves rolled up, over the April 2012 issue cover featuring the primate using a laptop.
9. Those loafers I wear, and Darren Greenyer of HPI finds oh-so amusing, are from Vegetarian Shoes of Brighton.
10. My first out-of-office assignment for the magazine was covering the Finance & Leasing Association presentation on Specialist Automotive Finance to the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Trading Standards at the Houses of Parliament. I met Michael Crick from Channel 4 News.
11. The first car I ever drove was an Austin Metro, Angel Delight butterscotch colour.
12. An estimated ‘most’ of each magazine is put together late-night, with a lot of sore, redden eyes, eating whatever Sainsbury’s has put on the reduced shelf that evening.
13. Fred is a Derby County fan, so is Charles, our data man. I support Brentford but have seen them once in the last three seasons. Grant weeps regularly about Heart of Midlothian and reporter Pete is "proper" pre-Abramovich Chelsea.
14. We all got 500 new business cards, then moved to a different office.
15. The average copy of Motor Finance contains over 20,000 words, more than the average monthly output of Charles Dickens.
16. I have written around 350,000 words for Motor Finance and Leasing Life, the equivalent of about four novels.
17. The first published interview I ever conducted was with a professor from Imperial College about the mating-and-homicide ritual of Tahitian butterflies.
18. While on holiday in 2011, Fred managed to acquire a can of bear pâté. He shared it around the office on toast.
19. The first Motor Finance article I wrote was about AVCIS sponsorship.
20. My first Motor Finance interview was with a Ford dealership.
21. As a child, I thought Ford and Boots were run by the same company because of the similarities of their logos.
22. The average weight of an issue is 27g.
23. To deliver all 100 issues by Royal Mail, with next-day delivery would cost £27.50 in postage.
24. All 100 issues would weigh the same as the world’s lightest road bicycle.
25. …or two average human brains.
26. …or a baby at 36 weeks’ pregnancy.
27. …or 1/490 of a Volkswagen Golf Mk5.
28. The first car Charles ever drove was "something on the farm".
29. The first car Fred ever drove was a gold 1975 Ford Thunderbird. Around an Oklahoma airstrip.
30. If you printed out every page ever in a PDF issue of the 100 issues of the magazine, and laid them end-to-end, it would cover the length of the Nærøysund Bridge (2,300ft) in Norway.
31. …or 1581/4 Citroën Technospace concept cars, bumper-to-bumper.
32. The first Motor Finance article Fred ever wrote was about finance provision for SsangYong in the UK.
33. Fred’s first interview was with Graham Wheeler of Volkswagen Financial Services.
34. At time of press, there have been 46 Fleet Fridays, our online fleet roundup.
35. Fleet Friday was originally given Roman numerals, Fred being confident it wouldn’t last long.
36. At average reading speed it would take over five and a half days, non-stop, to read all 100 issues of Motor Finance.
37. Fred used to give talks at the London Aquarium. About fish.
38. I was briefly a bodyguard.
39. Charles was a cabbie.
40. Pete was a ski instructor.
41. The word ‘flunk’ has never appeared on motorfinanceonline.com.
42. …until this article is uploaded.
43. Charles, who also subedits all our spelling and grammar, qualified as a football referee, aged 13. His first red card was issued on his debut appearance to a Punjab United Reserves player in the Derby amateur Sunday league for tearing up his notebook. I wud hav payed two sea that.
44. In other magazines published the same month as Motor Finance #1, Angela Lindvall wore a cardigan worth £205 on the front of Vogue, which also pointed out one could purchase an Hermes shoe bag on this new-fangled bargain website called eBay.
45. Despite Bush v Kerry becoming the most-written-about US election of all time, the quality of both the political and media debate reached such an all-time low the whole thing resembled a thousand-page world jumble to keep children amused before the food arrives at a restaurant which only serves bilge water. Upon receiving the bill (around 5am, GMT), the world realised it had been watching a coin toss between distant cousins to see which one became the most powerful man in the world. None of which stopped Time that month being largely devoted to bad noise and migraine-inducing graphics about two old greys called ‘W’ and ‘Chief Big Chin Purple Heart’.
46. It was the 25th anniversary issue of Viz.
47. Gardener’s World, the BBC monthly saplings advice barrage designed for those who find the Daily Mail a bit too racey these days, had a special on scented sweet peas and selected its hardiest varieties of banana.
48. Perennial Midlands clothes-escapist Jo Guest was in Razzle, no surprise.
49. This is the first time Jo Guest or an Hermes shoe bag have ever been mentioned in Motor Finance.
50. Most of the content is printed in Sabon font, the discerning man’s Times New Roman, apart from headlines and standfirsts, which are in Franklin Gothic Book and Demi, neither of which look like you would imagine from the names.
51. A standfirst is the story-in-a-sentence introduction placed underneath a headline. Technically, if it mentions the author, it’s a byline, I think. I dunno, ask Charles.
richard.brown@timetric.com
